MY CALL: I mean, it’s okay. If you’re like me and you wanna’ see basically every 80s horror movie, this one is not likely to be regretted nor lauded. There’s just enough action, just enough gore, just enough silly gags to keep my attention span afloat. MORE MOVIES LIKE Primal Rage: Primates were pretty popular around this time—check out Monkey Shines (1988) and Shakma (1990).
While striving to develop the greatest breakthrough in modern medicine, a scientist at a Florida university accidently creates a rage virus while experimenting on baboon brains… while the baboons are alive. Sounds like a future founder of the Umbrella Corporation or perhaps a past researcher on the team behind The Crazies (1973, 2010).
Never heard of this film. And when I’ve never heard of an 80s movie, I usually assume (and more often than not, correctly so) that it’s pure drivel—even if often deliciously bad. But as far as filmmaking and production value goes, this movie opens with a promising campus-life montage and surprisingly capable acting.
College journalist Sam (Patrick Lowe) plans to break into an on-campus animal-testing lab to get a story. Sam’s friend breaks in (on Sam’s behalf), is bitten by a test subject baboon, and gets sick. The virus spreads by bite… and even by first date hickey. Victims become wildly violent and ill-tempered. Their skin looks sickly with lesions and boils, they drool, they become stronger from the adrenaline rush, they become furiously homicidal—everything you’d expect from a rage virus movie. They even get somewhat zombie-ish. Before 28 Days Later (2002), Resident Evil (2002) and The Sadness (2021), there was Primal Rage with its much lower budget 80s rage virus.
Trying to solve this problem, Sam teams up with his love interest Lauren (Cheryl Arutt) and her roommate Debbie (Sarah Buxton; Nightmare Beach).
The special effects of this movie are nothing special. Not terrible by any means, but clearly budget limited and not trying to make waves with wild death scenes. Sure, there’s blood and drooling and strangling. Still nothing particularly titillating transpires on screen. A zombie grabs a victim by the hair and rip-scalps him, another rips the skin off someone’s hand, and another rips out someone’s throat. But you see so little and so briefly, these scenes lack any impact. Still, the movie is trying and you feel that. It’s not so bad really. The groaty monstrous face makeup is consistently gross, there’s plenty of blood along with some silly gags, a hilarious falling death and a silly crushing death, and there was a nice decapitation. When a baboon is hit by a car, the visual effects are ridiculous. Best part of the movie for me.
Not so rare for 80s movies, but a small warning. The movie includes some very toxic masculinity, violence against women, sexual assault, attempted rape, and other unsavory social content. None of it comes to strong fruition or becomes graphic on screen. But it’s there.
In the end, Sam and Lauren kill all those infected and go about their business like pretty much nothing happened. See what happens when you perform inhumane science experiments on animals? I’m looking at you, scientists!
This is a light, easy going but still mildly gross and bloody horror entry. Recommended for major fans of 80s horror. This is no hidden gem or must-see. But it’s a breezy watch even if absent of gee-wow horror effects or inspired death scenes.